


For the Long Nights

by olivemartini



Series: the heavy hearts we hold together [11]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-05 05:29:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11571324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: After the incident with Larry Whitt, Beatrice finds herself unable to calm herself down enough to sleep, so she goes to the only person she knows will help: Reid.





	For the Long Nights

Beatrice is sleeping in a bathtub.

She's not sure when she started doing this, or when it started being a socially acceptable thing to her, but she knows that some nights in the only thing that can make her breathing come a little easier, when she's huddled up in blankets that should be on her bed and staring at the door, her hands a mere foot away from a gun no one knows she has and she doesn't really have any practice with using.  It's not a rational thing to seek comfort from, but there is something safe about cold tile and a bright lights and soft towels constantly brushing against her, just balled up in a nest of blankets and pillows.  And there's only one exit, and no places to hide, so she can see that the lock is still in place without getting up, and she knows that there are no monsters lurking in her tiny cabinets, and she's fairly certain that if someone was going to try and bust down her door, she'd have enough of a warning that she'd make it out of the bathroom and onto the fire escape.  

"This is ridiculous,"  She murmurs, and her voice echoes back to her.  She stares at herself in the mirror- a bruise across her face, cheeks pale, hair pulled up into a messy bun its already slipping out of.  Beatrice is also in a too big shirt that she thinks she might have stolen from Reid, which makes her remember what he had whispered to her before he had left her in that car with JJ-  _I'm here if you need me.  For anything._

He had seemed so honest about it, so earnest, and there was no hint of an empty gesture.  Beatrice can't tell if she's trying to talk herself in or out of her idea, but she's out in the hallway before she can think, rummaging for her keys and deciding to take the subway instead because yes, that may put her in danger of abduction, but after a full 28 hours where she ran on power naps only, she's not fit to operate a car.

And when she's standing in the doorway of Reid's apartment, him in low hanging sweat pants and sleep ruffled hair, the lines from his blankets still clear on his arms and face, she can't really bring herself to regret it.

"You said anything."  She said, feeling hopelessly pathetic, and also feeling like she was cashing in on all those nights where she would sit in the dark alone, refusing to call anyone because she didn't want to make them aware of the kinds of things people might be doing during the day, not to mention what comes to mind when it changes to dark.  "Let me stay?"

He opens the door wider, and he is looking at her like he did right when she untied him and they hugged for real ( _a desperate, clinging, you are the only thing keeping me sane at the moment kind of hug_ ), like she is his worst sin and his only chance at absolution wrapped into one.  "Yeah."  He doesn't mention that it's three in the afternoon and she clearly hasn't taken a shower yet because he can still see the flecks of blood in her hair line she didn't wash out, or that it's impossible for either of them to sleep when the sun is streaming through the windows, or that he had called her three times last night and she had rejected each and every one of them.  "Of course."

 

 

Beatrice thinks she is going to sleep.

Preferably in the same bed as Reid, not that she would suggest it.

But he has other ideas.

"Shower,"  He tells her, throwing a towel onto the counter and turning the water onto hot before walking out, saying that she should give it time to warm up.  That she should take all the time she needs.  So she listens, because being the person who needs taken care of is something that's a bit new to her, and it's easier to get through this if someone else is taking control.

The water is hot, and she lets it go until its burning her skin, and then she scrubs until her arms are red and raw.  There is no trace of last night on her now- no piece of blood, no stray scent of sweat, no gritty feeling that comes when death happens right in front of you.  There is only water swirling down the drain and the scent of Reid's soap, thick and heavy in the steam filled bathroom.

It's a good thing to smell like him, a grounding thing, and when she wraps herself in the towel he gave her and moves into the kitchen to find him ( _to maybe tell him she's going to go home, maybe to ask what she should do next, maybe to offer him something she's not sure he even wants to take_ ), he's there waiting with a smile on his face (one that slips into a slightly harder to read expression when he sees her, but that's fair) and shoves a plate of food across the table to her.

 

 

She's dressed now.

It hadn't taken him long to offer her clothes, and it hadn't been long after that until she snapped back into herself and realized that while he wasn't necessarily  _opposed_ to the idea of a basically naked Beatrice Palmer standing in his kitchen, Reid was exactly sure what to do about it either.  And if this is going to happen between them, she wants it to be in a situation where he knows what to do about it.

"I didn't know you could cook,"  She says later, after they've fallen into their old spots on the couch and found a tv channel that was playing crappy soap operas and had no danger of showing news reports on the Larry Whitt incident.  "And all this time I was waiting on you hand and foot."

"I was injured!"  He protests, mouth twitching.  It is really good, and true to form he had stuck with pasta (alfredo), but he had also dug out some questionable shrimp from god knows where to dump in.  "And besides, it's the rules, isn't it?"

She knew what he was talking about without him really having to say it, and she also knew that this was his way to open the conversation without her having to ask.   _When you almost die, someone cooks for you,_ she had told him, again and again over that whole week.   _It's the rules, Reid, ask anyone._

"Yeah."  She buries deeper into his side, and he stares at her with a question in his eyes before relaxing.  "Let's not make a habit of it, okay?"

 

 

There was coffee, and more pasta, and dusk creeping into darkness before they were willing to face the inevitable and admit that eventually, they would need to sleep.  And neither of them really wanted to do that on this crappy couch.

"You take the bed," Reid tells her, coming out with a pillow and a blanket for himself.  "I'll sleep on the couch."

"Don't be stupid."  She shoots back before she has a chance to think it, how she should be grateful that he's not kicking her out.  Reid looks at her in surprise, probably because no one had ever called him stupid before.  "You're not sleeping on a couch."

"Well, you aren't sleeping on it, either,"  He says, sputtering, like its her being unreasonable now.  "That's not... I'm a gentleman."

She snorts out a laugh, then quiets when she thinks of the night stretching out ahead of her.  Beatrice gets to her feet and moves over to him, lingers in the doorway just long enough to place a kiss somewhere between his cheek and his jaw.  It's an invite if there ever was one, but he doesn't take it, just closes his eyes and turns away from her.

Beatrice tries hard not to feel disappointed.

"Good night, Spencer."  She crawls onto the bed, buried in these sheets that smell like him, and watches his silhouette move away.  "I'll see you in the morning."

 

 

 

Except she doesn't see him in the morning.

She sees him around 4 o'clock that night, when she wakes up tangled in the bedsheets and gasping for breath, trying to calm herself from a nightmare she can't even remember.  Going back to bed on her own isn't an option, not when she can already see the never ending slideshow of  _gun to her head, Larry Whitt, pull the trigger, pull the trigger, hope it doesn't land on you, BANG_ already going off in her bed.  She slides out of bed and moves into his living room instead, moves around the piles of books and kneels beside the couch where Reid's still asleep.

He wakes with a start, already prepared to take action, hand going for the gun that he was expecting to find at his belt.  "Beatrice?"  He blinks at her in the darkness, and she takes a moment to think that all the important moments between them always happen in the dark.  She should probably work on that.  No good relationship ever happens in the shadows.  "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."  She finds his hand and tugs gently, until he's sitting up and following her without even thinking about it.  "Just come to bed, Spencer."  She nudges the door open again, falls back into his bed for the second time, and after a moment's hesitation, he crawls in with her.  

"We can't keep doing this,"  He whispers, when they've made it so they're lying a foot away from each other, laying on their backs and listening to each other's breathing.  Beatrice has been staring at the ceiling and is intending to look at nothing else the entire night.  She wonders what he's looking at.  "We can't just... just keep making moves and then pulling away."

"It's one night, Spencer."  She flips over so her head is lying on his chest and their legs are tangled together.  He sucks in a sharp breath, but doesn't move away from her, so she takes it as permission.  She's in a taking sort of mood tonight, where there's no room for giving.  "Just stay with me."


End file.
